on-MOBEl TAXONOMIC LIST OF PLANTS 97 



plorers tell of finding them in cultivation amoiifr the tribes of Xorth 

 America from Quebec southward throuofh .Mexico and Central Amer- 

 ica into most of South America. Dr. D. V. Ilavard says: 



The common kidney bean (PJiaseolus rulf/arU Savi) is a South Anierifaii 

 plant . . . The finding of seeds of this species by I'rof. Witmack in the pre- 

 historic graves of Arizona, nr.t only complete<l the demonstration of its .\meri- 

 can origin l)Ut likewise proved the antiquity of its culture in our own country.' 



In considering the cultivated plants grown by the tribes of Ne- 

 braska at the time of the advent of Europeans it is of interest to 

 discover the probable region or regions of their origin and first 

 domestication. We find the mo.st advanced civilization on the con- 

 tinent prior to European invasion was in Mexico and southward. 

 In that direction also we find the wild plants most nearly related to 

 the species aboriginally cultivated both there and in what is now 

 the United States, facts suggesting the probable area inhabited by 

 their wild prototypes. Doctor Coulter = reports nine species of the 

 genus Ph-fifteolus- indigenous to western Texas, some or all of which, 

 judging from their size as he de.scribes them, seem to make promising 

 candidates for domestication, and we can conjecture that some of 

 these or others farther south were the original of the cultivated va- 

 rieties found here. 



Before the coming of white men the Omalia cultivate<l many 

 varietie^s of beans of different sizes and colors, both bush beans and 

 climbing beans. The pole beans they called hi"Othi''f/e a-TrWlhi" 

 {hi"hthi"(/c, bean; am.o''thl'\ walking). Bush beans were called 

 hi''hthi"ge mo^fhi" nzhi, "bean not walking" {azhi, not). Since 

 their old order of life and industries have been broken up by the 

 incursion of Europeans they have lost the seed of a number of varie- 

 ties which they formerly grew, but I have found four varieties still 

 grown by them, and they can remember aiul describe the following 

 fifteen: 1. Black-spotted; 2. ■\Vhite-spotte<l : 3. Yellow-spotted; 

 4. Red-spotted ; o. Gray-spotted ; 6. Very red ; 7. Very black ; 8. A 

 sort of dark-red; 9. AVhite; 10. A sort of dark-blue; 11. A sort of 

 dark-yellow: 12. Wiite with red around the hilum; 13. "White with 

 black around the liilum; 14. Blue, somewhat spotted; 15. '"Like the 

 hair of an elk," somewhat yellow-gray. 



Lespedeza capitata Michx. Rabbit-foot. 



Te-hu^td^-Ki nuga (Omaha-Ponca), "male buffalo bellow plant" 

 {te, buffalo; hwto", bellow; nuga, male). Ainorph/i. raufscens 

 was considered te-hu''to''-h! miga, female te-hu'"to''-hi. 

 PaniH-as (Pawnee); pants, rabbit; an, foot. 



The Pawnee name will be recognized as an appropriate descriptive 

 name. The Omaha and Ponca used the stems as thev did those of 



' Harard, Food Plants of North American Indians, p. 00. 

 2 Coulter, Botany of Western Texas, pp. 89-90. 



749:«5°— U)— 33 KTH 7 



